Malaria Meds!!!

Hey everyone!

Don't forget that you are supposed to take your Malaria medication (assuming that you are on the weekly prescription) TOMORROW with your most substantial meal. If you were bitten by a mosquito that carried the disease, my understanding is that you are still susceptible to contract the disease.

Just a reminder...

Jeremy

Want a sneak preview?

Ok... I know that most of you will see it in Church before you get to see it here, but if you happen to be up late and want to see it early, here is the video that we are showing of pictures from the trip. BIG TIME thanks to Stacey B for taking some of her recooperating time to sift through the 1500 photos to put this together!

Big part of the service

Hey Everyone!

This Sunday is shaping up a bit different than we expected! Originally, we were planning on the "web cast" day to be the primary day to share the stories of the trip... and then incorporating a few stories of the trip into this week's sermon...

As I have been planning the sermon ("From Fear to Faith") I am sure you can see how this trip is hard to avoid!

As a result, I have asked 4 of the students from our trip who shared applicable experiences with me or our group to share a bit of those stories when it relates to parts of the sermon.

Also, Stacey Bock has been struggling all day now to whittle the pictures that she has down to a video that we will show in all three services!

So... MAKE SURE YOU ARE THERE.... WE WILL BE SHARING THE SAME THING ALL THREE SERVICES, BUT YOUR FRIENDS COULD SURE USE YOUR ENCOURAGEMENT!!!!

ALSO - PASS ON THE WORD TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW SO THAT WE CAN MAKE SURE TO GET THIS INFO OUT ASAP!!!!

Jeremy

We're in ATL

Short and Sweet

It's 1:20 in the morning and we leave here at 7:30 AM! So, I know that I promised a short one last night - but this time I mean it!

Here is what we did today...
... breakfast
... stand around and wait for our driver
... Took a "Canopy Tour" (you may have heard of this on the travel chanel). For those who haven't, its a series of zip lines where we are half of the way up the mountain down... by zip line!
... 1/2 of the group got stuck @ the place where we took the Zip line. Thank God for Nate - it's a huge help to know that there is someone around to cover gaps like that one!
...relax around the pool while I set dinner up
... relax around the pool with Dinner
... Had our last "debriefing"

Now, I am sitting here trying my dead level best not to fall asleep...

Quickly, I would like to get you our flight information, as to minimize confusion tomorrow night.

We will be leaving La Ceiba bound for San Pedro Sula @ 7:30. From there, our flight is into Atlanta on Delta. We will arrive in Detroit at 11:30 PM... very long day!

I am literally fighting off sleeping, you are going to need to get a last day update from them... I am going to try to blog in the Atlanta airport...

Thanks!
Jeremy

Exhaustion!

Well, this will be short and sweet... I can barely keep my eyes open.

We have finished the ministry portion of the trip and everyone is feeling the fatigue that has, up until this point, been staved off out of sheer necessity.

Today, we started the day out by attending (and taking part) in the chapel services at the school that we have been staying at. It was a great time!

All of our students dressed up in the clothes that they wore to Church on Sunday morning sat in an outdoor stadium that rose in temperature as each of nearly 2000 children and student showed up! (over 2 services)

Nate Bristol (our new Student Ministries Assistant Pastor) took the stage to share a message about how God created us to exist in community. I have to be honest, when we interviewed Nate I had no idea that we would be hiring such a capable young man! As this week has gone on, we have seen how God has gifted him to work both with our students as well as with children (something that I am NOT gifted to do!). It has been a great experience for our students to have Nate along... what a way to get acclimated to a new job, huh?

After Nate finished, 3 of our students took the stage (one at a time) to share what God has been doing in their life over the last week. Graduating Seniors Scott and Kyle as well as one of our fantastic young ladies, Emily shared thoughts from their heart as well as a verse that encourages them. We forgot about it the first service, but for the second service, our group got up and sang "Sanctuary" as a special music.

After we finished the services, we all loaded the bus to head to one of two orphanages! What an incredible experience! Our students had opportunity to play games and talk with little children who lack the love and affection that many of you long to show your own children!

There is far too much experience in that to capture in a short blog article, but I absolutley MUST tell you about one of the orphanages! Back before I made my advance trip (March) to Honduras, I researched the potential of our visiting an orphanage while we were here. In looking through the options, I came across an organization called "the Children of the Light." I visited their web site and had planned to see what it would take to visit them while we were here. Unfortunately, because of the brevity of the trip and my lack of relationship with the team here, I was unable to pursue that research and was forced to trust the experience to the hands of our hosts. Get this... when we pulled up to the orphanage, I completely missed it (I am trying to rest at every opportunity). It wasn't until the wife of the gentlemen who runs the orphanage was explaining the history of the ministry that I realized that this was the orphanage that I wanted to check out while I was here! What an amazing and sovereign God we serve!!!!

Now, we have moved to the Quinta Real Resort. It is amazing to enjoy air conditioning and some of the comforts of home again... as well as the beach and a pool! Tomorrow, we will take a "canopy tour" of ziplines through the rain forest complete with a natural hot water spring and volcanic mud... followed by a relaxing afternoon before we head home! (by the way - there has apperantly been some confusion... we leave HERE Wednesday morning and will arrive home hopefully very late in the night that night (it will actually be Thursday AM when we get there)

Here are a few pictures before I fall asleep and drool all over my keyboard... btw - thanks for all of the great comments, I read them all to our students during our nightly meetings before bed... they love to hear every word! KEEP THEM COMING... TOMORROW IS THE LAST NIGHT (so the comments posted to this posting will be the ones I read on our last night!!!!)

Thanks!!

Immersed in "Grace"

Sometimes the unexpected is only unexpected to you! I am endlessly impressed by God's amazing ability to orchestrate the most unrelated experiences together for His glory!

Today was not supposed to be the highlight of the trip. To be honest, the idea of sending students to a church where they wouldn't understand the sermon, coupled with a more conservative dress code and then spending the day "resting" sounded like a recipe for attitude. I was so NOT expecting God to show up in the midst of today.

At the early hour of 4:30 AM, Joel, Danae, Chris and I got out of bed (we didn't get into bed until about midnight!). We were so excited to get to be a part of an international web call with our church community at home! The funny thing is that we were set up in a Pizza Hut parking lot with a laptop (on it's battery), a web cam and a heavily armed guard... the church at home is the epi-center of technological development in Williams County and THEY were the one with technical difficulties during the beginning of 2nd service. We could almost feel the buzz of excitement as people shared in the joy of ministry here in Honduras!

At the end of our 3rd service connection, our host Francisco rolled up in the van to pick us up and was able to be a part of the excitement for the 3rd service... we could hear the cheering!

After a quick nap and lunch, we drove to the Pico Bonito National Park to play in the river and water-fall! No one expected what would happen over the next few hours...

To give you a glimpse of the experience, I will need to give you some background. Over the last 5 years or so, I have seen Danny Lamneck (one of our students on this trip) grow deeply in his faith. Over those years, Danny and I have talked numerous times about his desire to be baptized. Earlier in the trip (just after we landed here), Danny and I talked again about it... Since we have been here I have thought about asking Danny if he wanted to get baptized in the ocean while we were here... each time, I chickened out. As I was watching students play in the deep pools of water under the waterfall... I thought about it again... and again chickened out.

As Julio (our driver) and I were sitting on some rocks talking about the remaining plans for our trip, I casually asked him "what is the name of this river?" (I figured it would be good information for the blog). His answer: (I will include the picture - otherwise you will think it was staged)

Ok... so maybe your spanish is a bit weak... it means "GRACE RIVER." I could barely contain the excitement... I could hardly wait until he got up to the top of the area to ask him (as gently as I possibly could) if he would like to be baptized in this river - right now! It was great to explain the terrific symbolism of being immersed in a river of grace!

I honestly struggle to even write this because I cannot explain in words the depth and excitement it was to experince this step in Danny's journey - in this place - with this group!

BUT THE STORY IS ONLY BEGINNING!

As I shared this idea with one of our leaders, I could sense the excitement in her voice... I thought is was excitement for Danny... (hold on to your seat, Kevin... this is about to get exciting!!!!)

Once Stacey started talking, I realized that she wasn't as excited about Danny as she was for herself! I encouraged her to search her heart to ensure that her desire to follow Christ in believer's baptism wasn't only reaction to the moment (or the circumstances), but more a sense of her genuine next step in her journey with Christ. She expressed that her only reservation was that her husband Kevin (who had planned to come with us on this trip) was not here to experience this moment with her... I told her that she was on her own on that one :-)! I guess that wasn't enough discouragement...

Once I explained what we were going to do to the group and expressed that anyone else that would have interest in taking this step (as well as the significance of this step and what needs to have already happened regarding accepting Christ as their Savior prior to baptism), we had four more students express interest!

Half immersed in the literal waters of Grace, I had a significant conversation with each of the interested students to clarify their intent and understanding... then I had the opportunity AND PRIVELEGE to baptize each of them....

Ashley Miller

Dylan Krupp

Connor Robinson

Ally James

Each of them (in the water) shared their story of coming to Christ with me (and agreed to share that aloud with our group tonight)... words cannot do justice to the pure joy of being a part of this significant experience with our students!

Here are some pics to help you experience it with us! (we also have some videos similar in quality to the one from the other day, I will try to get those up later)